


sonder

by Ghostigos



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Drabble Collection, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Slice of Life, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:39:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25226206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostigos/pseuds/Ghostigos
Summary: snapshots of the lives in moominvalley and beyond
Relationships: Mumintrollet | Moomintroll/Snusmumriken | Snufkin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	1. the summer guest

**Author's Note:**

> ( _if you are awake, come out_ — when they tell our story, they'll pronounce our names wrong)
> 
> a lot of this is just from Spite Write sessions bc sticking with one narrative in a world that demands to be explored is exhausting!!! also i wanna loosen up my writing hand
> 
> these stories will take place in the same universe as [this series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707049), unless i state otherwise!

_June, 1946_

The summers in Moominvalley are often densely hot, as every season which crosses the land pools into the hills and festers with a hodgepodge of different climates. Whatever arrives from the mountains will stay, and stay, and then leave with a blank slate for the next visitor.

A thick tub of molasses swamps the hillocks; only the breaths of wind provide any release from the hot temperatures, and the plants wither as the water from the air and river is drained. With the trees overgrowing they drip onto the tall, wheat-painted grass as though to tell the earth secrets.

The children inhabiting the valley are blessedly smothered in this only place they’ve ever known, or have ever been allowed to tread. Although their family lineage is littered with nomads, there’s a sort of mutual, unspoken negotiation between all parties that this is not a trait to be repeated until the kits are prepared. It stems from trauma, aptly put, glossed over but embedded into their genes older than sin — it can only be cured by slicing the cycle in its tracks.

And so, here, the children play without care, despite the packing heat.

Lil Muff, ginger and proud and very fluffy like cotton waste, climbs a holly-oak planted near Moominhouse which brings shade. A grunt escapes her — knowing a curse would cost her tonight’s dessert — when a tuft of her fur has clasped itself around a stray branch and is now snug in the bough. She tugs, wincing when it pinches her nerves, and is freed with a bright, ginger cottonball being left behind.

“Is everything alright?” Below Lil Muff is Snap — the busybody, she’d say if asked, but it’s a good thing she isn’t — who looks up at their sister with crossed arms and a frown.

“‘M fine!” Lil Muff calls out — she attempts purchase on the branch above her to prove it, digging her little claws quite painfully into the bark.

“You’re going to fall and sprain something.”

“You wish!” she sneers.

Snap raises their brow but decides, ultimately, that should their sister tragically die here it’d be the way she wanted: with a grand, stupid act of bravery.

They could lecture more, but instead they sit and uphold thick condescension when they hear their sister’s groans of defeat, seeing there’s no way to reach the top as the branches slim out. Many ‘I told you so’s hang in the air, unsaid but still heard because Lil Muff gives their sibling such a glare from where they’re sitting in the grass, watching them intently.

“You’re rotten,” she calls out.

“I didn’t even say anything,” Snap says, crimping their lips.

“You think so _loud!_ ” When her paws pads touch the earth again she sprints over on all fours to give her sibling a rude flick on the forehead, emitting a protest. “I can tell you’re being all high n’ mighty in that oh-so-big brain of yours!”

Rubbing their abused temple, Snap glares at her. “Well, either way you’re out of that tree so there, perhaps my rotten self saved your hide.”

“I _chose_ to stop climbing,” Lil Muff scoffs, turning away. “Don’t give yourself so much credit!”

“Dripsayshuh.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing.” Snap grins to themself. They stand and brush the dirt off their behind. “Let’s go see what Pappa is doing.”

“Pappa?” Lil Muff whips her head around to see, indeed, Moominpappa has situated himself on the opposite side of the holly-oak, right on the edge of where the hill teeters downward. He can’t see the children from his easel and canvas.

“Wonder what he’s paintin’,” Lil Muff wonders aloud, and at once the children flock over to where their father stands.

Moominpappa paints with uncertainty, as though every brush stroke is permanent. He cleans the brush in an old jar filled with muddy water, pit upon a stool with other supplies, and tries very hard to emulate the tree before him.

“Hiya!” Lil Muff and Snap approach, with the former sprinting over like a startled rabbit. Her happy tail slaps against the grass. “What’re you painting, Pappa?”

Fondly, Moominpappa sets his palette to the side and scoops her up, as she’s still young and very cute. “Hi, Muffin,” he coos, holding her so she can eye his work. “What do you think, eh? A modern masterpiece? Y’know artistry runs in the family, dears — perhaps you’ll be a painter too!”

Lil Muff puckers her frown to the side, thinking it over; she gives the painting a proper looksee, despite her itchy attention span, and concludes, “Looks bad, Pappa.”

Moominpappa sputters in shock and offense; he spends so long gawking that Lil Muff finds the time to wriggle out of his hold.

“Goodness,” he murmurs at last, as his daughter runs round and round his setup. “I’d thought the tree looked _decent_ …”

“Looks like a blob!” Lil Muff trumpets, still trotting around like a horse in a carousel. “You should make it a big giant! A green pirate giant!”

“You and your pirates,” Snap sighs.

“‘Cause they’re neat!”

“Yes, but if they’re giants, their ships will just cover up the entire ocean,” Snap argues, swatting cleavers off the hem of their dress.

“Easy fix,” Lil Muff retorts. “Flood the land to make the sea bigger!”

“Now there’s an idea…” Moominpappa mutters above them; he’s so wounded over his daughter’s critique that he’s picked up the palette out of spite. He doesn’t look up from his line of work to say, “How’s about you go and tell Snufkinpappa his music is atrocious, then?”

On cue, a familiar creak from the red door on the veranda answers. From it emerges their second father, who is only present for select seasons but brings toys and songs and a good ear. He holds a tray with a ceramic jug, its contents unknown, and sets it on a nearby table where the glasses on the tray dance.

“Lemonade and fruit!” he calls out.

The children are immediately excited and leave Moominpappa to his work, setting off up the hill.

Behind Snufkinpappa, Pluckey steps out with their own share of fruit slices, having helped their father in the kitchen. They chew on the cherries to aim the pits at their siblings as they clamber up the steps, receiving dirty glares in their wake.

“Hello, bumpkins,” their father greets them warmly, pouring each of them a glass of strawberry lemonade. “Tell me if there’s too much sugar in this, please.”

They all thank him, sipping their drinks under the hot porch — in truth it’s more tart that sugary, but they’re all too parched to complain.

Snufkinpappa settles himself into a rocking chair and nibbles on a few stray pieces of pear. “How is your day, sweets?”

“Pappa’s an artist!” Lil Muff proclaims, finishing her lemonade and scrambling into her father’s open lap — he doesn’t mind the shedding furs left on his smock. “He’s paintin’ trees.”

“Badly, it seems,” Snap comments, leaning against the railing.

Farther out, Moominpappa listens in and gives the most bitter and vocal _‘Pah!’_ he can muster. This has Snufkin tugging back an amused grin; he watches his partner brush violent strokes of green across his canvas.

“It’s not very nice to tell others that their art is bad,” Snufkinpappa chides, patting his daughter’s downy pelt. “Artists are often very sensitive. They don’t like it when others can’t see the same things that they can.”

“Like bad trees?” Lil Muff tries.

“Exactly.”

She cranes her neck to the side a bit. “Are you an artist too, Papa?”

“I’m whatever you’d like for me to be,” he answers.

The afternoon melts into the sighs of primrose and honeysuckle swaying in from the west, and the children eat their goodies as Snufkinpappa plucks a strand of heather from Moominmamma’s garden just below, sealing it between his pale lips to dissuade the temptation to smoke. Lil Muff worms out of his grip, only to climb atop his shoulders and rest just beneath the brim of his hat — she’s too big to scurry underneath it like her aunt.

 _You promised we could go and give some food to Juniper,_ Pluckey reminds their father after everyone’s bellies are filled.

“Ah, yes,” he murmurs, then pulls himself away from the railing where he’s been admiring Moomintroll’s work. He gently shoos Lil Muff off his shoulders and she slithers her way off and onto the floor to explain, “Our guest may enjoy some lemonade, too.”

“Does Juniper even like sweet things?” Lil Muff asks.

“She likes you lot very much, so I’d assume so.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know!” she retorts with a fuss. “All she does is brood in her room! She never wants to play!”

“She’s twice your age,” Snufkinpappa reminds her. “Her idea of play may be different from yours.”

“She seems lonely,” Snap comments offhand, quiet for only the considerate ears. When none seem to notice their remark they look inside their glass to the kaleidoscope of lemonade and ice, and are ignored when they very much shouldn’t be.

 _I wanna go see her,_ Pluckey says. _Can I bring her the glass, Papa?_

“That’d be very kind of you, pudding.”

Satisfied, Pluckey hurries back inside to retrieve a clean cup.

“I wanna see her, too,” Lil Muff pouts, ears drooping.

Snufkinpappa cranes his fingers to give the top of her head an assuring scratch. “Maybe when she’s more comfortable with everyone, she’ll be happy to come out and talk.”

“Then we could go berry-huntin’,” Lil Muff agrees with a nod, perking right back up like a sunflower. “Pappa doesn’t _ever_ take us.”

Snufkin trades a worn grin with a very unamused Moominpappa, who is still eavesdropping and is feverishly painting with a stiffer demeanor than before.

“Perhaps be nicer to his hobbies,” he murmurs quietly to his daughter, “and he might consider.”

Pluckey knocks the door to regain their father’s attention, and they both take the dirtied dishware inside as the remaining two scurry off the veranda to further bug Moominpappa.

-

Every visitor, no matter the time or circumstances, can always rely on a room to be waiting for them in Moominhouse. There’s a comfort to that, but there’s also a yawning loneliness if one knew where to look, too. Nothing stays in Moominvalley for too long, the place being so serene and distant from the world that it’s almost a mirage; for some, that’s scary.

It does lend aid, though, particularly to any lost child that scurries up the hillside. And each with a name, sometimes where there once was none: Tuffe, Toft, Ninny, and many more all arriving like injured birds and leaving with eager, flapping wings onto the next adventure.

The occupied guest bedroom in question is at the very end of the hallway, as Juniper had a habit of folding herself in as small as possible. She hadn’t been invisible when she arrived, but everyone was fretful she was on the cusp of.

Snufkin holds the plate of fruits, given that Pluckey would just eat them on the journey up, and he knocks the door with his free paw.

There’s a tangible weight to the silence, not unlike making noise and seeing a deer crane its head. The drop of a heartbeat on the other side is so visceral that Snufkin finds himself uneasy too.

“Hullo,” he tries. “May we come in? We have snacks, if you’d like them.”

An intermission follows, before the clacking of hooves approaches and the door is hesitantly opened. Juniper’s eyes are the first to bleed through her frizzy hair, and she looks worn out. Her eyebags are so purple they bring a new pop of color to her maroon locks.

Her gaze drops to her visitor’s feet, and she seems delighted that they have no shoes to begin with. She widens the entrance and makes room for them to enter.

The bedroom is just as pristine as it’d been when they’d first given it to her — a ghost could make more of a mess. The only variety is a slew of opened books and scattered papers flung across a desk facing a window; they're all dictionaries or picture-books from the attic. Her wastebasket is overflowing.

“I wasn’t sure if you liked mandarin,” Snufkin says, placing the dish on top of a nursery book. “But I remember you drinking orange tea once — this is a similar taste. There’s cherries, too — you can spit the pits back onto the plate, I won’t mind cleaning it.”

Juniper just stares on politely, paws knitted together at her front. Her turtleneck itches greatly but she doesn’t budge.

She’s a very odd creature to the settlers in Moominvalley: a sort of deer but with markings on her face, and narrower in the snout. Her horned antlers are as sharp as, quote Lil Muff, ‘killer party hats’. She’s thin, too, like walking paperback; but there’s a strength beneath her, too, and her corded muscles always seem prepared to sprint. Akin to a wolf in sheep’s clothing, glinted eyes bleeding through the wool.

When she first found her way to the valley, she spoke with a very strange language that sounded like her voice was raised, and the way her tone was structured just wedged a thick barrier; her accent and her stress on odd syllables made her listeners scratch their heads.

They concluded rather quickly that her language tree was borne from an entirely different pasture. But, she’s very smart: she doesn’t sway from changing her language, but she does point to what she desires and helps the house spell it out to suit her. Pluckey has done a fantastic job teaching her sign, so she’s warmed up to them the most.

When Pluckey comes in, they bow their head a bit and sign something that Snufkin doesn’t catch, as he’s too busy side-eyeing the odd writing beside the Swedish books. Juniper bows in turn, although not enough that her gaze is smothered by her unraveling plait of hair. She, too, signs something he doesn’t interpret.

“Moominmamma asked about you in her letter,” Snufkin speaks up, and Juniper looks to him. Meanwhile Pluckey searches the threadbare bedroom. “They’ll be back soon enough, but they worry like the dickens, you know. They hope you’re well-fed.”

Juniper is attentive to his tone; when he’d first spoken to her it sounded so harsh to her ears that she’d cried a lot in private. But his demeanor and kind eyes flit beneath language; she knows he’s harmless.

“We’ll leave you be,” he decides, not wishing to overstay. “Pluckey?”

He hears their head thunk loudly against the bed slats, and Juniper cries in alarm before ripping her tongue loose and seeming to scold Pluckey very brutally for their innocent scavenging. Snufkin deeply frowns, finding the display more of mischief than offensive intent, but of course he intervenes.

“Silly beast,” he sighs before kneeling down and calling, “Pluckey, please come out from there. We don’t hide under others’ beds without permission, remember?”

They pick their way out a moment later, toying with their pockets that look a little more loaded than when they first delved under the bed. Neither appear to notice, with Snufkin apologetically letting himself out and Pluckey hot on his tail.

The door closes behind them as final and sharp as a legal sentence.

-

Not even an hour after, Pluckey tugs on their father’s dress.

“What is it, chickadee?” Snufkinpappa doesn’t look up at first, occupied with her fervent attempts to scrub the rust off the family’s pans; with Moomin’s parents out on an impromptu sailing trip he’s determined to leave them with little to no chores upon their return.

He finally lets up by flexing his pruned fingers and giving them a wipe, and then turning to his child properly so they can communicate with him. “What is it?” he repeats kindly.

Pluckey pulls their findings from beneath Juniper’s bed from their pockets and holds it out for inspection: a soup can.

Snufkin looks rightfully baffled, at first. “Do you want this?” he asks them, taking it. “It’s close to supper, you know.”

They shake their head. _Found it,_ they explain.

“Where?”

_Juniper._

“Oh.” His tone becomes very strange — a verbal pin drop.

Slowly, he plots the can next to the sink, unsure of what to do with it. Pluckey awaits his response; they hope Juniper isn’t in too much trouble for stealing from the pantry, because she’s got a whole stockpile of goods so large it looks like a grocery under her bed. They saw some tinned peaches she’d stuffed away, and that’s admittedly upsetting because Pluckey had really wanted to save those for themself.

Their father keeps staring at the countertop very grimly. They recognize the symptoms of him thinking very hard about something particularly unwieldy, being: muscles lined, ashen face, a new weight to his eyes. 

His thoughts are skewed and upturned; it’s hard to tell his eight year-old why she’s done this but _he_ knows, _he_ knows why, and he also knows he can’t solve it because he’s never found the solution himself.

Pluckey looks more concerned the longer he’s quiet, and trots forward until their paws are on his smock; they look at him until he finally looks back.

“Leave her be for now,” he sighs, doubling over to give a half-caress, half-headscratch. He encases their velvety paws with his prickled ones, which carry many stories beneath their grip. His eyes look like prisons. “If it makes her happy, best to let her take what she wants.”

Pluckey doesn’t look content by this — they’d really wanted those peaches. But, suppose someone in the house could always take them shopping to retrieve more.

With his gaze still battered and raw, he tries an easygoing expression that doesn’t suit him; he stands and releases his child’s paws. “Did you take a bath last night?” he asks them.

They blink. _Yeah._

“Your hair smells lovely — must be that new shampoo,” he says. “Go and play with your siblings. I love you.”

They do so, and Snufkin perks his ears to hear them race off towards the direction of the front door.

Once he’s alone, he takes the soup can and pushes it behind a breadbox before it starts making him feel sick. If Moomintroll finds it and asks, he’ll try to be honest.


	2. in which tulippa makes a discovery

In the forest’s heart lies greedy things; the sunlight snuffed and speared acres back in the bustling overgrowth, leaving shadows to heavily rely on the trees. Festering bugs shriek the air and birdsong flutters half a mile back; it is vast, and it is very lonely.

If not for her hair, Tulippa would find herself lost in the copse of trees. Her blinding locks are candlelight to her bare feet, which tread delicately over long ferns and sedgegrass. She wanders alone, as she often tends to; but she never finds herself hollow because of it, taking to asking stray flowers for advice, and finding solace in bumblebee buzzes and squawks of kestrel to be as pleasant as old friends.

Her long gown billows behind her steps like a draped wedding gown, and she is especially careful not to disturb the pink-petaled pod strapped to her waist with a thick strand of wheat. 

Tulippa hops along the moss-soaked stonepath, the bubbling river beneath it ancient and festering into smaller veins of water which trickle around the woods like a dripping pan. The treetrunks grow fatter, more daunting as they curl up to the infinite sky and she can’t decipher where it ends. She knows she’s reached the forest of humanity, and it will only get worse if she continues.

But, she does. Tulippa is hardly dissuaded by much, and truthfully humans are a close ancestor to faekind. She can’t find it in her to worry over old gravesites, no matter the troubling tales of that lineage.

She walks and walks, her feet aching with wrong roots or pointed stones, and her hums meld into song: she sings to whatever suits her, paying homage to the knotted spruces, the emerald leaves which batter her face and tangle in her hair. She sings as there’s no one but kin to hear her, and so she sings without mercy — faekind being linked to not only humans, but sirens, leaves Tulippa worried and, in company, squanders melodies in the back of her throat.

Untamed, Tulippa trudges on with her seedling. Her thoughts are ditzy and dumb, allowing herself to wonder shallow things without remorse: what color her daughter’s hair would be, how much salt in a scone before it’s too much, how far she can skip a stone across smooth waters. It is all upheld and fascinating to her.

_I wonder if you’ll get lost,_ she wonders to the seedling, and then smiles a bit in retrospect. _Well, that’s silly, of course you will. I do hope your hair glows like mine — it helps with being lost._

She stops when an odd rock captures her attention — a boulder, or a skyscraper, or another equivalent to something massive. It shoots up and blocks her path, like a stone-door, and Tulippa marvels at it. Something about it — how it feels so unnatural, or how there seems to be an inscription so large and so high she cannot see it — leaves her mouth bent up on one side as she ponders.

_Strange,_ she thinks, bringing a fingertip to her chin. This could be the marks of humans, somehow.

It doesn’t seem like it was meant to rot away, forgotten; the edges of the boulder are much too ovalline, it’s not natural without a potential water source, and Tulippa can’t find anything that alludes to a large water source which molded this shape. It’s just...very off.

The words inscripted up top bug her the most. Tulippa looks around for assistance, and gives a triumphant ‘aha!’ when she spots a pop of forget-me-nots against the dark foliage — lucky for her, they’re fond of tulippas.

She trails over and kneels before the tiny plant, trailing her delicate fingers over the blue beauties, which curiously peer forward into her grip; they recognize her.

Tulippa whisks her hand about in a fluid notion, as though conducting an orchestra; quickly the forget-me-nots follow her coordination, sprouting higher and higher until the opening pistils are large enough for her to hop onto, and they cradle her like a second home.

Smiling, she reaches the tiptops of the odd rock, to where she’s eye-level with the inscription. Sauntering forward — although hesitant, as the petals can only maintain so much weight — she reads:

_Godfrey Walsh,_

_Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h'anam dílis_

_1930-2007_

_Goodness, this is an epitaph._ Tulippa finds herself mesmerized in a way she cannot explain, but stepping backward and viewing the stone for what it is — what lies beneath her, now — is a sadness, a repose of bruised quiet.

She thinks, now, of the wildlife which has bloomed thanks to the human’s sacrifice. She wonders if she herself, and her old tulip, bursted from a human’s old bones and clawed to the surface in mad attempts of revival.

“Poor bastard,” she clicks her tongue sympathetically, at last, and requests to be lent back down to the earth. The forget-me-not retracts, but keeps its new size as it bends like it’s rain-heavy, and Tulippa tumbles back into the sanctuary of the solid earth. She would’ve leapt from the astounding height entirely, had it not been for her daughter’s presence.

Adjusting the seedling a bit with a rolled shoulder, Tulippa assesses the gravestone. _At least it’s very big,_ she tries, carding a tired hand through her hair. It’s forgotten, sure, but very noticeable —as humans were, she supposes.

The nightbugs are awakening from shelter and cooing, enticing her, but she decides it’s enough travel for a day. Any further and she could encounter another disheartening discovery — whatever land has not been scraped clean of humans, it festers like untouched wounds. She can’t find herself capable to shoulder every lost existence.

_Maybe someday,_ she decides to herself. This gives her an idea — her blue tresses flicker with it, and her lips curve to a grin.

Swerving around, Tulippa asks the flowers for a favor.

-

The pathway is old and overgrown, with not a single indent that Tulippa had ever tread there. Droplets of afternoon sun hang from the forest’s ceiling like speckles of diamonds; it’s been years, and the hike was never engraved in her memory, and so she asks around a bit more to the cinquefoils and ferns on where to travel.

“Mother, I’m very tired,” the girl behind her complains — she’s seven years old now, and her hair is wavy like rippling waters, akin to her mother, but it’s an explosion of plum-color against porcelain skin, and her paws and barefeet are very black. “And I’m starving, we haven’t packed anything! I’m withering!”

“You aren’t withering,” Tulippa sighs. “We’re going someplace very special, Hollyhock. Please be patient.”

“But everywhere is special!” Hollyhock groans, dragging her cloven toes along and catching dirt in them. “There’s no sunlight, either — what if we die?”

Tulippa can’t find it in her to dignify a response, knowing that only another bout of whines will ensue, and instead shuffles down the soft crag with her gown in fistfuls, so the muddy brook won’t soil it. Hollyhock barrels into the dirty water, ruining her new dress without a bother, and stomps her feet about before regrouping with her mother.

“We should be close,” Tulippa murmurs to herself, looking at the blades of baby-blue flowers which strike her. There’s packets of them spread across the thicket, drawing color to where there was once none. Then, she gives a short cry of delight to find that, through the trees, the grave still stands with new additions:

The forget-me-nots have nearly engulfed the stature, taking away all but the etched, proud name. The flowers protect the grave, an impenetrable wall; growing with the body, not without it.

“Here we are!” Tulippa announces, and Hollyhock bursts into a sprint with an eager gait. She stops at the enlarged flowers, looking more baffled than interested.

“What is it?” she asks her mother, turning back.

“It’s a human grave,” she explains, catching up evenly. “There aren’t that many anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Humans haven’t been around for a long time.”

“Oh,” Hollyhock says, accepting this with a casual shrug. She cranes her neck as far as it can go, till the tips of her hair pour purple against the greenery. “I want a big stone like this!”

“You’ll turn to flowers like the rest of us!” Tulippa snaps, and gives the forget-me-nots a pat of thanks. Their petals extend to her like blown kisses. “It’s getting late, shall we head home?”

“ _What??_ ” Hollyhock agapes, stomping a foot. “We trudged all the way out here for just this??”

“We won’t find anything kind if we keep going,” Tulippa answers. “It’s best to leave the ghosts be for now.”

“Hmph,” her daughter pouts, and she points a glare at the ground. “All for a scummy ol’ rock…”

Again, Tulippa does not scold her; she’ll grow into understanding eventually, and giving lip in turn resolves nothing. It’s bad luck to quarrel atop a resting place, anyway.

“Come and thank the flowers for their guidance,” she says instead, giving a great bow as instructed. The forget-me-not’s sway in turn, happy to have given service to such a polite woman. Her kindness stands, even years later, and they’re welcome to extend protection to her beloved spot for decades to come.

Hollyhock doesn’t complain, mimicking Tulippa’s movements with a more clumsy approach, and below them Tulippa swears the spirit bellows with thanks. She thinks of how wonderful to live in a world where everything is or has been alive.

It darkens overhead, as the forest turns from friend to prey and Hollyhock wordlessly shuffles to her mother’s side — she’ll never admit she’s afraid but the way she keeps a firm hold on Tulippa’s arm speaks volumes. Both faintly flicker like fireflies, and the brooding eyes of the wood let them leave in peace. She’ll return, likely, just because she knows how awful it is to be rooted in a forgotten place. She hopes her daughter will return someday, too, on her own volition.

When they depart, the coils of blue around the name tighten like a defensive vice. It names itself the heart of the forest, there, and whether or not it will thrive or wither away with time is as indecisive as anything else.


	3. an announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry.

I’ve avoided this for many reasons, and I’ve rewritten this so many times. I don’t find any personal gratification in indulging personal vents or information here, because that’s not what anyone comes for. But the fact that this is such a heavy things I’ve been carrying does need to be addressed, somehow, and I’ve nowhere else to put it. So here I am.

Never have I felt more estranged and rejected by a community than this one. There’s a yawning gap I’ve felt, and I _keep_ feeling, that I’ve never, ever experienced from writing for a fandom. I thought my passion for this series, and my desire to get my stories out there, would be enough to pull me over. I keep waiting for this to be worth it, whatever THIS is.

I have been compared and contrasted, I have been told by people that they avoid my writings on purpose, and I have been the rebound. Nothing _comes_ from my stories, and of course, of _course_ I’m not in it for fame or kudos; I’m honest when I express to friends that if I were extremely popular I’d likely be overwhelmed. But I can’t figure out why I’m so unapproachable and unliked in this community. 

And so, I’m forced to draw my own conclusions, being: my works are bad/offensive, and I’m, in general, a person unworthy of anyone’s time.

I’m fully aware that this is a grown woman who writes free fanfiction on the internet, griping about things that, in the long run, aren’t important. I think that’s why I’ve discarded my own sentiments for so long on this issue, but rationality and foresight has never made this heartbreak disappear; this feeling of not belonging is such a terrible pill to swallow.

I’m taking a break, because I’m forcing myself to. For several months now I thought that pumping out content would make all this that I’ve ever done feel WORTH it.. I thought I did everything right; that’s why I avoided talking about this for so long.

But I’m finally admitting it: I’m hurting so badly I can’t stand it. This is not anyone’s problem to fix but my own, and so I’m stopping production - that’s what it is - and stepping away from this site.

The only reason I’ll ever come back is because I love this series, I love these kids and I love the Moomins, I love my OCs and I love my stories. For a long time, that was enough. But I’m tired of preaching to no one, and so I’m going to be writing for me in the pastime, for the first time in a very long time. Somehow that got blurred along the way, and I want to do things for _me_. Fanfiction is not a competition.

This is not a soapbox to scream my mental health issues or any other external problems onto, because frankly: unless you’re my friend you don’t need to know. But those are factors, too, mind. If this was the only problem in my life I likely wouldn’t be writing this.

And to the people who have supported me throughout and who continue to: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ever disregard the appreciation and comments you’ve left. You are wonderful, and you have often made my day more times than I can count. I’m sorry i haven’t the energy to respond to your kind comments, but they mean so much to me because I never considered myself worthy of having them.

I’m sorry, in general. I wanted my works to make a difference or an impact, I wanted it so badly, and I’m sorry that I failed on that front. Maybe it made the wrong impression. I don’t know.

It's so _daunting_ , the realization that one's absence means nothing. That one's _art_ is replaceable. It eats you up.

tl;dr I’m taking a break from writing publicly because I’m not a factory assembly nor am I paid to do this, and if I’m not getting satisfaction out of this then there’s no point. I didn’t want to disappear without a trace, and frankly I’m tired of being ignored and I would like to shout from time to time. It’s human to scream, I think.

Please, please remember to take care of yourselves, this is already such a stressful time as is; and don’t be me, don’t put your feelings in a box and stuff it away just because other people might be experiencing worse, or because you think whatever you’re feeling is invalid. You’re feeling a certain way for a reason, and no one should be allowed to smother it or take it away from you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nobody’s listening anyway what’s the entire point.
> 
> what’s wrong with me why am i hated so much i can’t stand this please just let me know why.


End file.
